Multi Tasking

Well I was not going to blog today because getting home from work gave me the biggest headache I have possibly ever had. I left school at 3:20, got to the Kiambu matatu at 3:35 and sat in it until 4:15. The ride home then took over half an hour for a total of an hour and a half in a matatu with a new record of 22 people.

Aside from the way home, today was great. I taught 3 girls most of the day. It was funny because one was grade 6, one was grade 7, and one was grade 8. They all sat on the same desk/bench with their books and I sat across from them in a chair. I had to start one up on geometry, the next up on volume and area, and the third on time conversion (am/pm to 24 hour time). It was a really cool and awesome challenge to keep them all busy and multi-task like that but I think I did a pretty good job.

I keep wondering what they did before I was here. They only have 3 or 4 other teachers right now. They must have just had kids of all ages together in a room. I dunno...

Most of the kids from Waskam are sponsered by Americans. Its costs roughly 4000 shillings to send one kid to school for a year, that is about 33 dollars. To send a kid through primary and secondary school it is about 400 dollars.

Someone just sat next to me in the internet cafe that smells horrific.

So they sell coca-cola all over Kenya. The first time I bought one I was telling the lady how it is better here then in the US (outside of the US in many places they use real sugar), and she asked me if coke was not only in Kenya. I told her no its all over the world and she seemed shocked. Then she asked me, "What about Fanta?"

Sorry because of time this blog will not be as long or detailed. I appologize.

One thing Tommy and I wondered about before we left was what we would eat. I am seriously loving the food here. I know I have said this already, but they cook such simple foods but they are delicious. I watched the school cook make our daily lunch of rice and vegetables today. There is onion, tomato and cabbage cooked with cooking fat and then steamed rice. It is great. I will be making many of these meals when I get back home.

I had a really good talk today with Kimani about the US and Kenya. We taught each other about our countries and I learned a lot. He told me how the government is corrupt and how the country is very poor but there are many billionaires that control the market. He also told me how the matatu drivers just pay the police when they get pulled over and everything. It was interesting because it made me really think about capitalism and how it is nonexistant in Kenya. For instance, they have ONE beer here. It is called Tusker. Whenever another company comes they get wiped out by Tusker. Kimani told me that there was another beer recently that was good but Tusker was able to lower their prices and use their power to wipe out a new company. I told him about our monopoly laws and he said they would help in Kenya.

Well I am going to leave now with Tommy to catch a matatu back to our town of Maziwa. It is a 10 schilling 5 min ride. Better than walking through town like we did the first day.

Thanks for reading and commenting as always and sorry again for a lame post. I will make my next one good to make up for it.